So I was living good. I loved life. And then one day I turned 14 and my dad dragged my ass into the liquor store and says, you work here now. And I was like, how much are you going to pay me? And he said, two bucks an hour. And that's a far cry from making $1,000 a weekend selling sports cards. I don't know how many of you have a Soviet father, but there wasn't much of a negotiation. So at 14, I started to go down the path of the context that I think we share, which is a business that is in the realms of under $10 million a year. Take home things of that nature, that world. And that is really the foundation of how I see the world. Right. And so when I sit here and I think about multiple things that people here are going through, actually, how many people here run a shop that has more than 10 employees? Raise your hand. Good. About half. Like, that is a totally different dynamic. As you start getting into double digit management of people, there's a whole nother layer of just not outflanking. It's what I know. Half of this room's thinking about motivating, retaining, feeding all them out, the whole dynamics. And so, you know, I come here today with a very practical energy of trying to hope that in a room of this many people, that 3% of this room actually finally hears what I'm saying. Cause unlike 2009, when I started to talk about these things, or 2006, even when I started talking about these things, there's nobody. You know, in 2009, I was like, you should be on Twitter and you would be in the crowd and be like, he's a fucking genius. It was like profound. Like, what does that even mean? You know, it was like this like thing. Nobody here today is confused that human beings attention sits on social media at scale. Everybody has an opinion of that. Unfortunately, many people here deploy their human opinion when thinking about your actual business. The consumer you're trying to reach to sell your service to is really not super interested on your hot take of what 13 year olds are doing on TikTok. They're not super intrigued by how much you like or dislike Facebook. They just live their life, see things and spend their money. And so there's so many things to talk about in this room. First and foremost is a very simple question that everybody needs to ask themselves. That is, here's a good one by show of hands, who here would like to grow their business this year? I'm just curious, please raise your hand. Just look solid. Good. Thank you. Little weirded out by the couple that didn't raise their hand. Have no clue why you're here in that world, wouldn't it make sense to actually try to execute on the reality of what the consumer's doing? I'm aware that when I look around this room and again, I think you'll appreciate, I hope you appreciate this. I'm aware that a lot of you have done this for a while and have built an actual network and great reputation in your general region and are building and have built your business on doing the right thing, being good person, working hard and building on word of mouth. I appreciate that. What I think a lot of you who've lived through other soft markets, because when I look in this crowd, there's youngsters in this crowd who haven't lived through it yet. Some of the OGs here rolling up to get a cup of coffee at this conference, see somebody under 30, like, kid, you don't even understand what happened in 2008 was a motherfucker, right? That we know that, right? Here's where it gets tricky. When we go through up and down cycles for a lot of people that just raised their hand and went through it at the time, they had less to lose. At the time, they had no choice. At the time, they were the young buck. And as a matter of fact, they actually used 2008 to actually accelerate the growth of their business. The problem is it's different for those people that navigated 2008. They're in a different life cycle. They're a little more bougie, their overhead's a little higher.
A (7:00)
They don't go to the Holiday Inn on their vacation anymore, right? And now they're caught because they're softer. And so it's not as fun to do the things that they had to do in 08 because it was much more Fun to do the things they did in 19 because it was easier. I love what we're sitting through right now in this room. This is when we separate people who have stomach for it and people who don't. We all know that there's a lot of people that entered this business in 2016, 15 that aren't gonna make it through. Cause they only trained in the softness. They don't like the dirt, they don't like the grind. I don't think anybody here is gonna like what's about to come out of my mouth in the deepest of my heart with enormous compassion, empathy and deep want for happiness. And everybody in this room, I want every single person here posting 12 different clothes, creative posts across five different social networks a day. I want every person in this room, after this conference, after this talk, to go home tomorrow and post somewhere between eight and 15 pieces of content on LinkedIn, YouTube, Shorts, Facebook, Instagram, Snap, TikTok. And I want you to do it every day. What I just said is 100% it's non debatable fact that the people that are outflanking in every micro segment of every business in the output of creative. And of course the quality matters, of course the quality of what comes out of your mouth is a variable of your success. But before you even start the debate of what do you say or what are you talking about or how are you doing this? The data is undeniable that the companies and humans in service businesses that are outposting its competitive set are picking up market share by the simple fact of there's just too much attention of society on these seven to 10 platforms. So it's just classic, right? Like every single person here knows how to get into better shape. There's not a person in this room that does not understand that. It is a combination of eating better and going to the gym. I think we can all agree not everyone in this room is doing that right. I struggled with that for 40 years, 38 years, I never wanted to either. And then I just one day on a plane decided this is not going to end up well and I started working on it. Nine years later, eight years later, I still never want to do it a single day. I'm being really serious. There's not a single. I literally hired a full time human being to be my babysitter and travel. I'm being dead serious. I got to the financial level where I finally figured it out. I'm very good at being accountable to others, to my family. I'm a good boss because I Think I work for them, not them. For me, that's a whole nother thing. For the people with the 10 employees, by the way, I'll go real fast here. You have 10 or more employees. I'll give you one sentence that will disproportionately help you through this window. You work for them, not the other way around. You get into that mindset, it gets real good, real fast. If you actually care about them, not what they are supposed to do for you, it gets real good, real fast. That's being an actual boss. You know, the reason I stand here and I'm putting this framework up and I want to use this health comp is I don't. Just because it comes natural to me to do 10 posts a day. I know that for 80% of this room, it does not. But just like the journey I went on, which is, I didn't want to die at 65, I thought it would be better to live longer. I like it. I'm doing something every day for nine straight years that I genuinely, genuinely hate. Genuinely.
A (10:38)
Brian. When I wake up every morning, I'm like, this sucks. Like, I don't want to do it every day. And so I don't care how much you hate social media. I don't care that you've decided it's ruined the world and the kids and the this and the that. And I genuinely don't care. Because your customer doesn't care. It doesn't care what you think of it. I just desperately need you to stop losing market share. Cause if you're not gonna do it, somebody else is. And those referrals are great, and they'll keep you going. But I don't have to explain to anybody here that if you don't get more, it's eventually gonna run out. How many people here are retiring in the next five years? And I don't mean before you go, sir. You're really hyped, huh? You're ready for golf, huh? You heard that? You're like, fuck this shit. I'm dolphin. Yeah, I get it. No, no. How many people here are retiring within the next five years? Not because you're gonna crush it and buy an island, but because you're old and you're finished, raise your hands. Five years. How many people? You don't want to be old? You're back down. This is super important. If nobody's in this room's raising their hand, everything we're about to talk about, the rest of this talk is only gonna become dramatically more relevant, not less. Unfortunately, we're not going back to the telephone the way we all grew up. If we're over 50 here, we're like, you're not gonna go to the wall and spin the thing and call. Like, we're just letters, you know, letters. Not gonna gain market share in the next decade. Right. Like, even. Even our precious Google, that has been foundational to the way the world has worked over the last 25 years. 20 years is being challenged now with ChatGPT and artificial intelligence. Even that. Hey, everybody, hope you're enjoying the podcast right now. Make sure you follow the podcast. That's why I'm interrupting. Let's keep going on this show, but follow the podcast. It'll make my mom super happy. So how many people here do pretty solidly in search engine optimization, SEO or SEM? Raise your hands for leads. Even the people that are outflanking here that are actually growing through that, even that tried and true guaranteed execution, now has for the first time a clear technology change that could change everything. Because if this thing keeps getting as good as it looks like it's going to get, you're just not going to go to Google at all. You're gonna go to ChatGPT or something like that. Or Microsoft just made a $10 billion investment in it, and we might be going to Bing because Bing might be run on chat. Like, this is. Like, this is how the world works. And again, what's so cool about getting the gray hairs under 35? How many people here under 35 raise your hands, let's clap it up for the youngsters. I like that.
A (13:30)
So many advantages for being in that game, right? Because what I'm saying here is much more natural. You up with that? You're like, I get that. That just like, seems normal. The thing that you don't have with under 35 is the gray hairs of experience. We've been through the patterns. Has anybody here ever wondered why so many service businesses are called ABC? ABC laundries, ABC carpet cleaners, ABC. That's right. Watch this. Kids under 35, get ready to have your head blown off your body. The reason there's drillions of ABC bit businesses is because when the world did not have Google and it had something called the Yellow Pages, when you would go to see somebody to clean your carpet, they did it in alphabetical order. And so if your company was called ABC Carpet Cleaners, you were basically the first result on Google and you got the business. That little tiny story is all I care about to talk to you right now. There are people in this room that will do one fun fact, one video of here's a fun fact of the opportunities in mortgages. Just that here is a fun fact of one opportunity in mortgages. Post that on Instagram Reels and TikTok and with no followers you do not have an account yet and it's your seventh video. And one video like that may go viral and lead to more leads for you in a 24 hour window than you would get the entire year. That happens every day. Yet we continue to choose not to look. What's happening in this room is people are choosing not to look. You just made a decision that you can't get business from TikTok. You just made that decision. You didn't post 50 times on it, you didn't optimize your profile, you don't have your website linked to the the URL of your TikTok. And then a video did solid and you got leads. You just decided. There's way too much deciding on subjective opinion in this room. And it's not about this room, it's the whole world. The reason I can say it is I see the data across the whole world. This is what's happening. This is why there's a supply and demand opportunity. Life is very simple. It's supply and demand. It's actually shockingly simple. If you understand supply and demand in every aspect about everything about life, you will start to understand how to make decisions very simply. The thing that I want to compel this room to is to understand the single biggest opportunity of under supply. Not enough posts against demand. Too much consumption is leading to remarkable opportunity. I'll tell you the place that I really think a lot of you should be very comfortable. I can wrap up my head around like Jesus, I'm gonna make videos on TikTok. That's nice, Gary, but I just can't get there. The place where I think all of you can get to and should on a daily basis is LinkedIn. LinkedIn should be a very cozy place for this room. There's nothing intimidating about it for this room. Right. The only thing about it is you should probably update your photo. Most of you.
A (16:34)
The photo from 13 years ago with a suit and tie. It's just not a good look. Let's get that photo updated to actually look like you. And maybe a little less stuffy, but LinkedIn should be a place you should dominate. LinkedIn today is acting the way Facebook did about 12 years ago. LinkedIn is if you haven't looked. But I have a feeling actually how many People here, by show of hands consume information on LinkedIn. They go to their LinkedIn and they read stuff. Raise it high. I want everybody, look, look, raise it higher, please. I see a lot of half hands. Please just do this for me. I want everybody to look around, keep it up. These people go to LinkedIn and read articles and information. There's an enormous opportunity on LinkedIn. Right? And now the thing that I'm most excited to tell you, you don't even have to make videos. You don't even have to make videos. I know that a lot of people don't want to do it. They feel awkward at it. They're self conscious about how they look. They don't think they have the gift of gab. There's three, three different ways to sell. There's video and it works the best if you're willing to get out of your comfort zone or if you're naturally like anybody here who's got a sense of humor and feels they have a level of charisma and isn't making videos on the Internet is just leaving pure money on the table. That's just facts. But for the people that feel a little bit more self conscious or aren't feeling as strong, the written word on LinkedIn crushes the written word. And again, here's the key. This is how you're gonna sell. You need to make it something bigger than about you. The post isn't like, I've been doing this for 16 years, you should hit me up. That doesn't work. The post should be like, did you know? Here's what's going on. Here's some information you can use. The more you treat it as if you work for Bloomberg and you're on TV or you work for the Wall Street Journal and you write about the mortgage industry, the more you treat it as you're the news source. And by the way, because we all know there's a level of localization to this, like if you're the local newspaper more than the Wall Street Journal, where you're making it into context of a new banks in town and here's what it means against a rate or you know, things that are actually true to the citizens. The combo of LinkedIn and Facebook for so many people in this room is a remarkable, remarkable brand building exercise, referral exercise, you will be flabbergasted. Where it gets super interesting for everyone in this room, in my opinion is what happens next.
A (19:02)
When you go through a path of doing this for a couple of months, when you go through this for A couple of months, you start to run out of ideas. Some of you will run out of ideas after the first, first post. It happens. You overthink it. You're not sure exactly. I mean it, you know, I get it. But it's all based on ideas. After a while, especially if you start following other people. People ask me, where do I start? I always say, go to Instagram and TikTok, put mortgage, mortgages, lending, all that, and just follow 50accounts. The content flowing to you will start to spark contextually what works, right? Right. You can do that on all the platforms. Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, on and on.
A (20:18)
The New York jets getting Aaron Rodgers, for example. Something, anything, anything. You make a video around something that matters to you or that you also know. This is where it gets super interesting. One of you makes 71 posts on all these platforms like we talked about, over two months. You don't get much by month two. You're questioning why you listened to me in the first place, because this has been a complete waste of time. You're pissed. And then you decide to remember this part of the talk. And you know that you're going to your bowling night with your buddies and you make one video about bowling. You post it and that bowling video gets more views because it's something people actually want to watch. Very few people want to hear about mortgages from you unless they're in market. Right. We would all agree that this is not the coolest industry that ever existed, right? It's needed, but it's not sexy. Right? Whereas bowling for a very small group of people is very sexy. Not for 99%, but for 1%. Right? But here's where it gets super interesting. That bowling video that somebody actually wants to watch because you said, this is how I spin it. That's the video that the person nine miles from your home sees, looks in your profile, sees. This is what you're doing for a living, is actually in market, and you get the email. That to me is the greatest opportunity for business people in sectors like this. And it's one that so few people do and understand. And the ones that do are picking up market share in the same way that the few hands that went up about Google Search, I promise you in this room and Google search is much more expensive today than it was 15 years ago. But if you talk to the OGs in this industry that built some big firms or the national players that are your toll booths or you know, people like Zillow that built their entire business on Google search, it worked out for people because they're the toll booth to referrals, the toll booth to referrals or to attention or to information. More than anything is brand. Nike did not get me because I typed in I want to buy sneakers on Google enter and then the ad show showed up. Nike got me because they've been branding for 30 years and I want to be associated. If you were able to micro brand around this subject matter in your world, that is your business, your word of mouth, referral reputation, that's called brand. That's called brand. But that's only as big as the 50, 60, 90, 12, 39 people that you've done business with and the four people that they've told, that's 200 people, 50 times four. When you do what I'm talking about for the last 30, 40 minutes, you start having the ability to have much more. You start having the ability to become so popular that you're now referring out leads in areas that you don't do business to other people. And your referral business is bigger than your core business and that's a fun business by comparison. This is a huge opportunity. I hope you're really grasping about it. Honestly, I'm gonna roll for a few more minutes, but I really wanna set up everyone's mentality because I predominantly wanna do Q and A because that's the thesis. But I know for the majority of this room we're in 101 land and people have very basic questions. Please do not be scared to ask a very basic question.
A (23:55)
Most of the people in this room are not on this journey yet. So everyone's in the same place. So start thinking about your question. But just to recap it and frame it, I believe that the market minimumly this year isn't going to be a fiesta. I think we can all agree it's not going to be on fire. I believe that people get scared in those environments. I believe people go on defense in those environments and actually go backwards. That anything that you have been doing that's been progressive the last two or three Years, you actually go back to tried and true, right? We're not gonna do that. We've been doing a little social media, Gary, but now it's a little bit scarier. We're gonna go back to calling people tried and true. I love when people go tried and true in dark times. That's when we get market share. Your competitors in every single one of your markets is gonna go backwards during this time. A little less $2,000 wine night to get referrals because they want that $2,000 because they're not sure if more money's coming in. This is your opportunity. You know why? What I'm asking you to do with social media costs $0. I'm not asking you to run ads. I'm asking you to know that we are now living in an era in social media that we have not seen since 2011, which means in 2011 you could post on a Facebook fan page and get a lot of people to see it. And you paid nothing for the first time since then because of TikTok. And now every company has had to follow TikTok because I'm sure at this point somebody here, almost everybody here, has been affected by their niece going viral on one post about their sunburn. Or a friend putting out something silly about a dog getting a million views. It's giving you awareness without having to pay for it. That is the ultimate for us salespeople. Could you imagine being able to get a full page ad in a newspaper for free? Could you imagine running local commercials on television for free? Can you imagine getting radio reads by the two biggest radio stations in your town for free? That is what social media is. It requires you to do work. But what are we doing here if we're not working? People love to talk big game and then they have to do it. We have to work. Nobody flew down here for kicks and giggles. If you decided to come down here, you're a worker. That's how I see it. That's what I like about giving a talk here. I'm not talking to everybody in this industry. People made the effort to be here. That means they're trying to make the effort to grow. My question is, when somebody who's consistently been right for 20 years about this stuff gives you the full blueprint why you won't follow it. I'm always fascinated by that and it goes back to my health and wellness thing because it doesn't come natural and that makes sense. This is the best opportunity to get serious about social because of the double dynamic of the Organic reaches up for the first time in a decade. While this industry is about to go on heavy defense and you're going to be able to pick up market share, I hope you take it serious. Thank you.
A (29:40)
No, this is like, you're in good shape, brother. I think what you want to do is collaborate with others, maybe do Stitches duets, right? You see other people making mortgage content. Maybe you comment on that. Do you see this whole green screen movement? Have you seen my content where I'm in the video and there's a headline? I think that for your industry is a monster. If I'm everyone in this room, I set Google alerts to to every term in the mortgage industry. See what news comes in. Even put like mortgage rates. Orlando, Florida. Enter like as a Google alerts. If you don't know what that is, just Google Google alerts. They'll show you how to. I know it's funny, but it's true. And so now you're getting something with an article that comes in. You have a thought on what that means? Cause look, me and a lot of people that are not in this industry, we can be smart, but we don't know every nuance that you know. That's why we need you. So you making a green screen video over the. Does everybody know what these. Have you seen these videos where like, there's the article and the person's talking?
A (31:23)
And I'll tell you why. It goes back to the comment I made about Zillow or in the restaurant industry. I did it in the restaurant industry. I saw what OpenTable was doing. OpenTable. How many people here have used OpenTable? Beautiful. OpenTable moved first on Google. They just bought the names of every restaurant on Google. People search restaurants on Google. They showed up first, and you're like, oh, this is the thing that I sign up for. And then they sold it back to people. My friends, I want you to make content because I don't want you to pay the referral fees of the future. You think Zillow and Google are bad? Wait till you see artificial intelligence. They're gonna charge you up to the cent on the referral. Cause they'll have the math. They'll be like, how much does he make on this? 3,000 bucks. Good. The referral's 2,900 bucks. Enjoy that shit. This is important. I'm not up here. Ha ha ha. Let's dance on TikTok. I'm up here. Like, this is brand and sales and business. And if you lallygag, you will continue to lose market share. It will happen. And I spoke at an event just like this. Just like this, many, many years ago of the limo and taxi ownership society. And I said, this Uber thing is not a joke. And they laughed at me. They said, nobody's gonna do that. It's too expensive. Do you understand what kind of connections we have with local politicians? You don't get it. And I said, you don't get it. Technology is undefeated. So please, let's stay on this and get serious. And it's about mindset. I so appreciate that you're doing it. You're way ahead. But it's funny when you talk through it, it's like 30 minutes a day, right? You're watching YouTube videos for an hour a day. You know what I mean? Like, it's not, you know, I'm not saying you are, but you know what I mean? It's not a lot of time, so let's keep it going. What do we got? Thank you. Hey, Gary, how's it going? So now that everybody's attention span is a lot shorter. Yes. Short form content, vertical content is, I guess, the easiest route to go. How do you feel about YouTube content and the longer form? I feel very good about it. Mr. Beast is going to be a trillionaire. It's the same way the way I think about short form and long form. Where Mr. Beast is gonna be a trillionaire is the way I think about a basketball. You know what a basketball is? Of course. Great. What's the ROI of basketball for you? How much money have you made? Because the invention of the basketball, Me, I'm negative. Cause I've had two knee surgeries already, right? But LeBron is gonna make billions because of it. The piano zero for me, quite a bit for Billy Joel and Elton John.
A (34:06)
So long form, short form, they both work. Some people are really good at like one liners and they're comedy writers and they've got improv DNA and they crush. In short, other people are just like, you know, they got real subs, they at a 20 minute pod. I mean, everybody here should do a 20 minute podcast interviewing every local business in their town. That's all you should do, just do a podcast, just interviewing every local business in town so that everybody locally listens to this podcast because it's all the businesses in town and then you're the host, they become aware of who you are and you get everybody's mortgage business. That's long form. Then you can chop up that long form into three or four pieces of short form. There's strategy here, but I gotta get everybody here just going to dig under the hood to put in the work. I got to get you your appetites up to like this is real. I can't get this all accomplished in this hour. I need to get you curious and focused. This is not hard. Start a local podcast. Where are you from, brother? Miami. Great. Start up SMB Miami. Small businesses in Miami. Just one great thing about how do I make content? You message any small business owner in Miami to be on a podcast. The answer is yes. Before you say send. People got egos out there, my man. Right? Me on a podcast? Hell yeah. Now you've got it. Now they're posting it on their pages and you're getting awareness. Now you're looking at the 25 minute video and you're taking two 30 second clips out. And that's your post for social when you're running out of ideas.
A (37:47)
I do think the context of the. What if I gave this talk this morning to the Auto Society, it'd be slightly different. Right. Like you could. You've heard words I've said today that made it contextual to your industry, the housing market. Right. So. But it would still be the general thesis. That's how I think about different social platforms. When you know TikTok's a little bit more fun and free, you could be a little more loose. Maybe you're not wearing your suit. Maybe that's where the bowling video goes at first. At this level where you don't have huge teams. And even 30, I don't laugh at 30 minutes it is still work. You know, I don't mind when people post the Same video every place. The one thing I always ask them is please change all of the copy. A LinkedIn post with a video you're gonna say different sentences than maybe something on Instagram or YouTube or TikTok. But if you, once you get addicted to the growth of your, your business through this model, you will make the content contextual to the platform and there's nuances. And again, what's cool is I talk, there's all my social handles, it's Garyve everywhere. You can go right now to my TikTok and Instagram and see I have the same video, but you can see that I post edited it differently and have different copy. Cheers, my friend. Next. Hi, Mary. Hi. Thanks so much. What's your name?
A (39:32)
First, I appreciate the whole the visionary thing. I always think that I'm just practical, but I'm just not excited about yesterday. When people are like, you're seeing around corners. You're a visionary. I'm like, no, I'm not. The world is addicted with yesterday and I'm passionate about today. I'm scared about tomorrow because you can guess wrong. I just live in today. Everything we talked about so far is not something that's coming, it's something that's happening right this second. While we're sitting here as far as ChatGPT, it's here. You know, there's videos of me six years ago on panels about AI. I'm like, I can't wait, but I gotta see the one. Well, guess what, chat GPT, that's what everybody should write down in Google just to see it. Like, remember this is like it's not 1999. And I'm saying everyone go check out Google. And 90% of the audience. I was doing it back then at Chamber of Commerce in New Jersey, you know, with 12 people, but 11 of the 12 didn't go look at Google. And for every one of those real estate agents, mortgage brokers, you know, tire resellers, they all could have picked up market share on Google if they did. ChatGPT, I'll give you an example. You know how everyone here is like, man, I don't know what I'm going to write on LinkedIn.
A (41:54)
Right? So, chatgpt, what do I think? I think for a lot of people here who are gonna struggle with what do I time? So it's a mitzvah for me. It's a blessing for me. I have terrible grammar. The reason I blew out on video was I can't write. I mean, the biggest joke of all time is I'm a five time New York Times bestseller. The way I do my books is audio. I'm writing a follow up to one of my biggest books, jab, jab, jab, right hook, coming out later this year. Profound concept. Jab, jab, jab, left hook.
A (42:26)
And it's ironic based on a talk. I wrote that 10 years ago and it was like, hey, it's time to understand content. That book was just a bunch of examples of posts on Facebook and Twitter and things. And it helped so many. I mean, it's really, really. That's why I love doing this. By the way, back to the opening line of this. I can't wait to get two of you to email me in three years saying this was the talk that doubled your business during this time. Because that's what happens if you actually do the Right thing. It's just the way it is. Anyway, what should everybody here do on ChatGPT? They should absolutely go home. First of all, you're gonna be blown away. This is like the first thing I've seen in so long that I'm like, oh, my God. So first you just need to see it. So I'm so glad this will be the time you first. But next, I think you're gonna write a lot of LinkedIn posts with it. For someone like me who doesn't have the time, patience or capability to write a LinkedIn post, it's now just a. About the ideas. Check this out. ChatGPT write an article comparing the current state of interest rates to 19 to 2008, to 1979 and to 1954. Enter. Then you get a whole bunch. Then you go in and edit and add a couple of sentences making it yours. And then You've got a LinkedIn post in three minutes, which means you can make 10 of them, brother.
A (44:20)
Door and ignore them. But if I ask my opinion, is the scariest place on earth for me to talk about is talking to people about raising their kids because it is the most personal decision on earth. Right. My opinion is I. I have 50 million followers on social across all the platforms. I've never posted my children once. Right. But my children haven't asked either. Right. So that's a journey you have to go on. I think I'm a little bit separating you and this question in general. I think parents making decisions for children to be that exposed is a slippery slope for those kids as they grow up. And so it. But. But I think it will work. You know, it's. At the end of the day, I think actually it's all one big game of self esteem that if you're able to instill self esteem into kids, they'll figure out all the pros and cons of society. You know, I think that's up to you and how you see the world. It's. Look, it's very effective. The reason people put their kids in their content is it gets more engagement. Yes. You know, which I think if that's the reason you're putting your kids in the content, that's a pretty shitty reason to put your kids in the content for, like, when people do that. But that's also. Who gives a shit about my opinion? That's them raising their kids the way they see fit. I think that it's something you have to give a lot of thought to. But to your point, maybe two of the four gremlins really want it and they're destined to be public figures. And this is just good practice. No different than people told my mom, me selling every day lemonade and bubble gum and baseball cards was bad. I needed to focus on school. They were wrong. Right. So maybe those two need to be in the content because they're gonna start getting their context on what they're actually gonna do. So it just really comes down to how you see it. You're welcome. Hey, David, Gary. Hey, brother Gordon from Arizona. The half retired dude? Yeah, I'll be there in a couple of years. Respect, brother. All right, so the question is the names on all these platforms. Yes. Do you have them business names? Do you use personal names? I do think personal name Gordon is if you're no different than the parenting thing, if you're willing to go there. Personal name is amazing because look what will happen with you. You'll do this for six years professionally with your personal name, and then you're gonna have a whole nother chapter of your life. And you may want to use social to meet people in your new area to put out other content. You might start a kind of side hustle, half business when you're done with this. Because the great dream of retirement for people that have certain DNA lasts about six months. It's great on paper. And you think you're gonna do all these things. And then it's Tuesday, April 9, four months in, you're like, what, I'm bored. I gotta do something else. And now you're in a financial position, a life position, maybe to do it around fly fishing or bowling or rock climbing or cooking. And by having it still be your name, you've got a platform. You don't have to start over. It doesn't go from mortgage man to like cow tipping, man. You know what I mean? So that's why we go with name. You got it, brother. Hi. Hi.
A (47:33)
Pleasure and thank you. Thank you. Heather, what do you think of Be Real and is it a platform for our industry and adults? It's definitely a platform for adults. Back to the whole, like, you know, people were too slow on TikTok because they thought it was teenage girls. I don't think it's a platform that is important for this room yet, and I don't think it will be if I'm right. But I'm guessing the reason I don't put out a lot of content on Bereal is I'm still watching to decide what happened to Bereal is what I thought would happen, which was it was such a singular platform where you take a photo and it shows both sides of the camera. Anybody who has teenagers in their lives knows this platform for the other 60%, they have no idea what we're talking about. But it was a social network that you take a photo, it shows what you took a photo of, but it shows you while you're taking a photo. It took advantage of both cameras. I thought it was a feature more than a whole platform. And sure enough, TikTok and Instagram and they all copied it and kind of killed its momentum. So it could, it could innovate, they could come out with a new feature that keeps building on it. But for now, I don't see that being as a meaningful platform. If I could just get this room to post four times a day, one on LinkedIn, one on YouTube shorts. Because YouTube is the second biggest search engine in the world world after Google and Shorts there do very well for search. So if somebody's that. I mean, the amount of people that search for mortgage information on YouTube is profound. So your short could show up. If I could just get this room to post one LinkedIn a day, one YouTube short, one Instagram, one TikTok, and reply to three people on Twitter when they search the term mortgage and they answer people's questions in the ethos, that would be a huge remarkable account accomplishment. So I'll focus on that for now.
A (49:21)
YouTube shorts, LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok one a day on all those platforms, Facebook, excuse me, that's a fifth Facebook fan page. And then reply to three people on Twitter from your Twitter account by going to Twitter, searching the term mortgage, mortgage rates, interest rates, you know, you know the terms of your business, you know, the things that people are asking. Search Those things hit enter. See people, I know what people think. They're like, well, I'm in Arizona and it looks like this account's in, you know, Philadelphia. But just keep building brand, keep building referral opportunities. Just keep building reply to people. This is how I built my Twitter when I was not known by anyone. I went to Twitter in 2007 and I spent five to nine hours a day while I was running a $50 million wine retail business because I wanted it. And instead of watching fucking Seinfeld at 8:30 at night, I had my phone next to me and kind of watched Thursday Night Football while I did it. And I replied to every single person in 2009-2011 that talked about wine in any shape or form, headed to Napa, looked at their account. They live in Texas. My wine store can't even ship to Texas because of state laws. And I would say here are the three wineries that you should go check out. Enter. You know why? Because when that person appreciated it, they told her sister that lived in New York, a place I could sell. Like, what pisses me off about referral based industries that shit or don't take social media serious is social media is word of mouth on steroids.
